Michael Steele Criticizes Trump's "Horror Show" Comment on Kamala Harris
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00:00of the campaign trail doing these mini town hall style events where she will go, she'll
00:05sit with someone, she'll be in conversation and she'll take questions and so she is primed
00:09and ready to kind of have a conversation, answer questions about specific policy issues.
00:15Donald Trump, he has been doing these, you know, big box and I have to use quotes when
00:19I say big box because he had his rally at the same place in Atlanta yesterday that Vice
00:22President Harris had hers.
00:23How did that turn out?
00:26Not well.
00:27He puts himself on the stage and says, I'm not happy, like there are a lot of stream
00:30of consciousness thoughts happening.
00:32He does tell you what he's thinking.
00:33He tells you right what he's thinking and I just, I think that the format that he has
00:37been taking in his engagement on the campaign trail, it has not supported the idea of debating
00:43a, you know, a seasoned debater, if you will, and that's who Vice President Harris is.
00:48He is concerned.
00:50This is what Donald Trump had to say about the Vice President, about trying to define
00:54her.
00:57So we have to work hard to define her.
00:59We, I don't want to even define her.
01:00I just want to say who she is.
01:02She's a horror show.
01:03She'll destroy our country.
01:04She doesn't want anybody saying Merry Christmas.
01:07Now she's denying it.
01:08You have a candidate who is fake, fake, fake.
01:13On the other hand, you have a president who will fight, fight, fight for America.
01:19He's just repeating what the consultant told him.
01:24That was an internal campaign conversation, the senior advisor conversation that was
01:27had with him.
01:28Sir, we have to define her.
01:29You have to stay on message.
01:30I've been there.
01:31I've been there delivering the message, not to Donald Trump, honey.
01:35He's undisciplined and frankly a bad candidate.
01:40They just don't know.
01:41They don't know how to run against Vice President Kamala Harris.
01:44They were ready, prepared and excited to run against Joe Biden.
01:47Oh, the election was over.
01:48That was their entire plan.
01:49They thought the election was over.
01:51They had everything they needed, you know, and, you know, President Biden was giving
01:54them plenty of evidence every single day to what they were saying, how they were framing
01:59him.
02:00They are having a hard time clearly framing and defining, as he was putting it, Vice President
02:05Harris.
02:06You know, last week we talked to, for Playbook, we talked to a bunch of both Republicans kind
02:11of in the apparatus, but then folks on the campaign.
02:13And they said, we are ready where, you know, the first week we were called it off guard,
02:17but now we're coming back and we have a whole different idea.
02:20We're going to talk about, you know, her as the border czar, which isn't true.
02:23We're going to talk about X, Y, and Z.
02:25But then what ended up happening is every turn, now they're back talking about her race,
02:30about her gender.
02:31It is almost impossible to get him away from that at this point.
02:34So I was just saying to Simone during the little media moves, listening to him, can
02:43we just use his words against him?
02:47I don't understand why we don't.
02:49So for example, let's just take the quote we just heard.
02:54And this is this is any of us, including Kamala Harris, if she wants to go down this road.
02:59So we have to work hard to define him.
03:02I don't want to even define him.
03:05I just want to say who he is.
03:07He's a horror show.
03:09He'll destroy our country.
03:11He doesn't want anybody saying Merry Christmas.
03:14Now he's now he's denying it.
03:16You have a candidate who is a who's fake, fake, fake.
03:20On the other hand, you have a president who will fight, fight, fight, or a vice president
03:25who will fight, fight, fight for America.
03:27This the thing about Donald Trump, and I'm curious how reporters cover this, because
03:32to be honest, y'all leave a whole lot of ish on the table, just leave too much on the table.
03:41And you take what this man says as if A, it's meaningful, B, it's it's important.
03:48And but for that title president, former president in front of his name, there is no way this
03:55iteration of Donald Trump would be a viable candidate for dog catcher, let alone president.
04:00And I just don't understand why we allow so much of what he says to seep into our culture
04:10and our politics as normal.
04:13That's not a normal quote from a human being running for president who cannot string a
04:19competent, coherent sentence together talking about someone else who is his political opponent.
04:25And we in the press and the media and others look at this as this sort of dogfight, this
04:32who's ahead, who's behind rat race, as opposed to what this actually says about how we have
04:39fallen as a country to allow that crap every day on our air.
04:44But that's just me.
04:45What do I know?
04:46I'm just sitting here trying to have some coffee.
04:49Just hanging out.
04:50I mean, the question of whether or not what this tells us about the country, that's why
04:54we come to people like y'all, right?
04:56People who have worked in politics before, people who are free to share their opinions.
05:01I don't think, you know, reporters, the country is not confused about who Donald Trump is.
05:06They weren't confused about who Joe Biden was.
05:09And that's why people didn't want this race, the race between the two of them.
05:12And so what we-
05:13But of the two of them, why did Joe Biden have to go?
05:16But anyway-
05:17Well, I mean, I understand.
05:18Well, because of people pushing him out, honey, but we discussed that.
05:21I would just say this to Michael's point, though, that I do share your frustration about
05:24Donald Trump.
05:25Like he is not a worthy opponent to Vice President Harris, wasn't a worthy opponent, in my opinion,
05:32to Donald Trump.
05:33Yet the polls were close, I continue to say, and they will continue to be close, because
05:37there are people in this country that want what Donald Trump is selling.
05:39That's true.
05:40There are folks that are just fine with the incoherent sentences to an extent, but I think
05:45playing his sound and us dictating what he just, you know, going back over it, is important
05:50because I think sometimes people think we're making it up, that Donald Trump, oh, he didn't
05:54say that, but y'all are being dramatic.
05:56He didn't mean it like that.
05:57No, he is saying these things, and y'all need to take him and his slurred words for face
06:02value, honey.
06:03Take it slurry, first thing in the morning.
06:06Eugene, stick around.
06:09Next Vice President Harris is close to giving a rose to her running mate.
06:13I love that imagery.
06:15And later in the hour, March for Our Lives co-founder David Hogg.